This is the assignment page for the topic "Christianity in Trouble" for J. B. Owens's sections
of the lower-division undergraduate course, History 101, Foundation of Western
Civilization. The sole purpose of this page and all of the pages linked to it is to provide an
orientation for those students enrolled in History 101.

Why did Latin-Rite Christian Europeans so often express dissatisfaction with the quality of
their political and religious leadership in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?

Why did the increase in lay literacy bring into question much of the existing European high
culture in the fifteenth century?

Why had the Renaissance-era Church (1450-1535) become so corrupt that by the early 16th
century all Christians felt the need for reform?

Why did Martin Luther and John Calvin attack the principles and institutions of the old
Latin-Rite Church?

What were the major differences between the thought of Martin Luther and the ideas of the
Latin-Rite tradition?

Why did Martin Luther argue in his essay "On Christian Liberty" that no works could justify
a person for salvation?

Why was Martin Luther's insistence that only Scripture carried religious authority so
significant for the Reformation period?

Why did John Calvin stress that, contrary to the principles of monasticism, Christians may
enjoy the material goods of this world?

What were the differences between the ideas of the old Latin-Rite Church and those of the
sixteenth-century Anabaptists?

Why were the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Radical Protestants unable to develop a unified
movement?

Why was the doctrine of the "human legislator", as developed by Marsilius of Padua (died
ca. 1348), so important to the Conciliar and Calvinist movements?

Why did king Henry VIII of England move toward the establishment of a separate church for
his kingdom?

Why did Richard Hooker feel it necessary to justify in the reign of Elizabeth I the existence
of an English church with the monarch as its head?

Why did the Protestant Reformation have a major impact on the development of a distinctive
European identity in the sixteenth century?

Why were all regions of Europe subjected to the "chronic violence" of rebellion in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

READING

Owens, ch. 12 (reread pp. 160-163) and ch. 14; Kishlansky, pp. 264-273; reread Augustine of
Hippo [359-430], Confessions, at the URL
[http://www.ccel.org/a/augustine/confessions/confessions.html] (from this Table of Contents,
select "Book Two," and on the bottom of that page, select the icon that looks like a stylized arrow
pointing to the right, which will take you to Chapter IV, also known as Part 9.); reread the
following chapters from Augustine of Hippo, The City of God: chapter 8
[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.V.8.html], chapter 9
[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.V.9.html], chapter 10
[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.V.10.html]; Martin Luther [1483-1546], Address
to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, at the URL
[http://history.hanover.edu/texts/luthad.html]; Martin Luther, Concerning Christian
Liberty, at the URL
[http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-luther.html#sw-cclib]; John
Calvin [1509-1564], The Institutes of the Christian Religion (final edition, 1559), at the
URL [http://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.toc.html], (This is the table of contents. Read through
the chapter titles, and you will recognize the major themes of Luther's mature theology. Then
read the following chapters: Book Third. Chapter 10. - How to use the present life ....; Book
Third. Chapter 21. - Of the eternal election..., especially parts 4 and 5; Book Fourth. Chapter 3.
- Of the teachers and ministers....).

If you wish, you may read a complete version of Martin Luther's Address to the Christian
Nobility of the German Nation at the URL
[http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-luther.html#sw-nobility].

Mail questions and comments to (owenjack - at - isu.edu), or send a message now. Please include your name and
e-mail address in the body of your message.